Systems and methods for providing event attribution in software application

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus for event attribution during software experimentation is described. The method may include receiving, by a server computer system, a plurality of event tracking messages associated with an end user system, each event tracking message including at least a customer identifier, an end user identifier, and a timestamp. The method may also include storing each event tracking messages with the received customer identifier, end user identifier, and timestamp in a customer data store. Furthermore, the method may include applying, by the server computer system, a feature treatment to a configurable application executing on the end user system, the feature treatment specified by a customer system associated with the customer identifier, and the feature treatment configures one or more features of the configurable application associated with the end user identifier. The method may also include attributing a first set of events from the received plurality of event tracking messages with the application of the feature treatment.

PRIORITY

The present application claims the benefit of and is a continuation ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/556,736, filed Dec. 20, 2021, whichis a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/681,207, filedNov. 12, 2019, which is a non-provisional of U.S. ProvisionalApplication No. 62/760,826, filed Nov. 13, 2018, both of which areincorporated by reference in their entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of software applicationdevelopment and deployment, and more particularly, to providingattribution of events to application features.

BACKGROUND

Software applications, such as web page based applications, mobiledevice applications, desktop computer system applications, etc., arecreated by software developers. The software applications are thendistributed to end users and run on end user computer systems (e.g., runon a user's personal computer, mobile computing device, served to a userfrom a web server, etc.). From usage of a software application, adeveloper may determine that changes to the application are necessaryand/or desired for various reasons. For example, a software applicationmay contain a bug causing the application to act in undesirable orunforeseen ways, and may even prevent the software application fromrunning. As another example, a developer may want to change a userinterface based on experiences and/or feedback of real world users ofthe application. As yet another example, a software application updateintended to allow a real world user to improve service booking mayappear to result in fewer service bookings. As yet another example, anew version of a web page may be intended to decrease page load time,when in fact it increases page load time. Thus, the effectiveness of theapplication in terms of operational performance and user experience mayinfluence updates to the application.

Software applications, however, are becoming increasing complex in termsof the number and characteristic of user interface elements, userinterface layout, functional elements, options that may be deployed inan application, as well as other facets that may impact user experience.Thus, measuring whether an update is effective in terms of operationalperformance and/or user experience is also increasingly difficult.Additionally, measuring effectiveness may involve systems other than theapplication itself. For example, an application may be intended to drivea user to submit a request to enter data in a customer relationshipmanagement system, which is not linked to the application, and thus itis not possible to relate events occurring in the application and thecustomer relationship management (and other) external systems.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention will be understood more fully from the detaileddescription given below and from the accompanying drawings of variousembodiments of the invention, which, however, should not be taken tolimit the invention to the specific embodiments, but are for explanationand understanding only.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary system architecture forproviding event attribution to feature treatments in configurableapplications.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of one embodiment of an application executionand attribution management server, one or more customer system(s), oneor more external system(s), and an end user system.

FIGS. 3A-3C illustrates events associated with configurable applicationtreatment application for attribution.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of an exemplary system architecture forexperimental group event attribution and application treatment control.

FIG. 5A is a flow diagram of one embodiment of a method for to providingattribution of events to application features.

FIG. 5B is a flow diagram of one embodiment of a method for aconfigurable application applying a treatment and reporting impressionevents.

FIG. 6 is one embodiment of a computer system that may be used inaccordance with an embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, numerous details are set forth. It will beapparent, however, to one of ordinary skill in the art having thebenefit of this disclosure, that the present invention may be practicedwithout these specific details. In some instances, well-known structuresand devices are shown in block diagram form, rather than in detail, inorder to avoid obscuring the present invention.

Some portions of the detailed description that follow are presented interms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on databits within a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions andrepresentations are the means used by those skilled in the dataprocessing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their workto others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally,conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desiredresult. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physicalquantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take theform of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored,transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It hasproven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, torefer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters,terms, numbers, or the like.

It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar termsare to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and aremerely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unlessspecifically stated otherwise as apparent from the following discussion,it is appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizingterms such as “receiving”, “storing”, “providing”, “accessing”,“comparing”, “detecting”, “performing”, “generating”, or the like, referto the actions and processes of a computer system, or similar electroniccomputing device, that manipulates and transforms data represented asphysical (e.g., electronic) quantities within the computer system'sregisters and memories into other data similarly represented as physicalquantities within the computer system memories or registers or othersuch information storage, transmission or display devices.

The present invention also relates to an apparatus for performing theoperations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for therequired purposes, or it may comprise a general-purpose computerselectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored inthe computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a computerreadable storage medium, such as, but not limited to, any type of diskincluding floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, and magnetic-opticaldisks, read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMs), EPROMs,EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, or any type of media suitable forstoring electronic instructions.

The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently relatedto any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general-purposesystems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachingsherein, or it may prove convenient to construct a more specializedapparatus to perform the required method steps. The required structurefor a variety of these systems will appear from the description below.In addition, the present invention is not described with reference toany particular programming language. It will be appreciated that avariety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachingsof the invention as described herein.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an exemplary system architecture 100 forproviding event attribution to feature treatments in configurableapplications.

In one embodiment, the system 100 includes a plurality of user systems,such as end user system 130-1 to user system 130-N, applicationexecution and attribution management server 110, customer system(s) 120,and external customer system(s) 140. In one embodiment, end user system130-1 to user system 130-N may be personal computing devices, such as adesktop computer, laptop computer, tablet computer, mobile computingdevice, mobile communication device, etc. The application executionmanagement and attribution server 110, customer system(s) 120, andexternal customer system(s) 140 may also be computing devices, such asone or more server computers, desktop computers, etc.

The end user systems 130-1 through 130-N, application execution andattribution management server 110, customer system(s) 120, and externalcustomer system(s) 140 may be coupled to a network 102 and communicatewith one another using any of the standard protocols for the exchange ofinformation. In embodiments, secure protocols for the exchange ofinformation may also be used. In one embodiment, one or more of the enduser systems 130-1 through 130-N, application execution and attributionmanagement server 110, customer system(s) 120, and external customersystem(s) 140 may run on one Local Area Network (LAN) and may beincorporated into the same physical or logical system, or differentphysical or logical systems. Alternatively, the end user systems 130-1through 130-N, application execution and attribution management server110, customer system(s) 120, and external customer system(s) 140 mayreside on different LANs, wide area networks, cellular telephonenetworks, etc. that may be coupled together via the Internet butseparated by firewalls, routers, and/or other network devices. In yetanother configuration, the application execution and attributionmanagement server 110, customer system(s) 120, and external customersystem(s) 140 may reside on the same server, or different servers,coupled to other devices via a public network (e.g., the Internet) or aprivate network (e.g., LAN). It should be noted that various othernetwork configurations can be used including, for example, hostedconfigurations, distributed configurations, centralized configurations,etc.

In one embodiment, end user systems 130-1 through 130-N executeapplications, such as configurable applications 135-1 through 135-N. Theconfigurable applications may include any type of software applicationsuch as an application downloaded to, installed on, and run on a usersystem, a web based application downloaded from a server computer systemand run on a user system, a mobile application where the user system isa mobile device, as well as other types of software applications.Configurable applications 135-1 through 135-N may be configured at runtime using application execution and attribution management server 110to control how one or more features are treated during execution of theapplication. For example, a feature may be turned on or turned off byapplication execution and attribution management server 110 forexecution by one or more user systems 130-1 through 130-N, such asactivation of a user interface element, activation of an applicationcapability, etc. As another example, a value may be set by applicationexecution and attribution management server 110 within an applicationthat impacts how the application is executed by an end user system, suchas specifying between different credit cards that can be accepted in amerchant user interface of the application. As yet another example,appearance of a user interface may be altered by application executionand attribution management server 110. In embodiments, the differentreal-time configurations of running applications are referred to hereinas treatments, where a treatment configures one or more applicationfeatures during the execution of software applications by end usersystems. Furthermore, each of user systems 130-1 through 130-N mayexecute the same or different applications having the same and/ordifferent treatments applied by application execution management server110. For example, different subsets or populations of end user systems130-1 through 130-N may have different treatments applied to theirrespective configurable applications 135-1 through 135-N duringtreatment efficacy experimentation, as discussed herein. For ease ofdiscussion, and to avoid obscuring embodiments set forth herein, theremaining discussion will assume that the configurable applications135-1 through 135-N are the same type of application even if they havedifferent treatments being applied.

In one embodiment, configurable applications 135-1 through 135-N areprepared for management by application execution and attributionmanagement server 110 by a developer of the application, such as by adeveloper associated with customer system(s) 120. In one embodiment, auser of customer system(s) 120 includes a feature treatment logic withineach application 135-1 through 135-N. Optionally, a user of developersystem 120 may configure the application to communicate with a softwaredevelopment kit (SDK) (not shown) that is either within each application135-1 through 135-N or remotely located at, for example, customersystem(s) 120, a web server (not shown) providing the application ofdeveloper system, etc. The SDK and documentation for inserting thefeature treatment logic within the code of an application may bedownloaded from application execution management and attribution server110. In embodiments, the SDK is a software development tool responsiblefor communicating with application execution and attribution managementserver 110 on a periodic basis for acquiring definitions that enable thefeature treatment logic with applications to select between configurableapplication features based on, for example, end user system identifiers,user identifiers, or other identifiers, and logic within theapplication's code for executing a feature specified in the acquireddefinitions. Customer system(s) 120 insert the feature treatment logicinto the applications to enable runtime configuration of applicationfeatures, such as the ability to selectively enable features,selectively change execution of features, selectively turn featureson/off, selectively change a user interface and/or the elementscontained therein, etc. One embodiment of providing for and configuringthe execution of applications with different treatment(s), selectivelyand in real time using feature treatment logic, is described more fullyin U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/198,498, titled “Systems andMethods for Providing Control of Application Execution”, file on Jun.30, 2016, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

In embodiments, customer system(s) 120 may assign application(s) 135and/or systems 130 with unique user identifiers, such as a user key. Inembodiments, the user key(s) may be provided to application executionand attribution management server 110 from customer system(s) 120, sothat customer system(s) 120 can specify how to identify specific endusers and then which end users are to receive which treatments.Furthermore, the user key maintains the privacy of users of thecustomer, as private and/or personally identifying information is notshared with application execution and attribution management server 110.

In embodiments, customer systems 120 may provide user attributes thatare associated with user keys, for example in a user data store (e.g.,user data store 216), such as age, geographic region, gender, incomebracket, etc. This enables customer systems(s) 120 the ability to testsoftware features at end user systems 130-1 through 130-N on a selectbasis, for example by activating a feature on a specific user (e.g., byuser key), a select group of user systems (e.g., subsets or populationsof user's having a specific attribute or combination of attributes), toroll out a feature slowly over a set period of time to select usergroups, to turn off features that are not behaving as expected, etc.

In one embodiment, customer system(s) 120 further insert event trackingmethod calls in one or more of configurable applications 135-1 through135-N. In embodiments, the event tracking method calls may also beinserted into software executing on customer system(s) 120 and/orexternal customer system(s) 140, such as systems providing web basedservices software, customer resource management software systems, remotedata warehouses, enterprise resource planning software systems, activepolicy management software systems, security information and eventmanagement software systems, and/or other software systems used bycustomer system(s) 120 that provide software and/or services to end usersystem(s) 130-1 through 130-N. In embodiments, the method calls areprovided by an application programming interface (API) distributed byapplication execution and attribution management server 110, which maybe inserted into and executed by software applications 135-1 through135-N, as well as applications executed by customer systems(s) 120 andexternal customer system(s) 140.

In one embodiment, event tracking method calls, when made, generate amessage that includes at least a customer key (e.g., a customeridentifier) that enables application execution and attributionmanagement server 110 to distinguish between different customers (e.g.,corporation X and corporation Y), a user key (e.g., a traffic type thatidentifies one or more users and/or characteristics of users of thecustomer, such as specific user IDs, class of user, a type of accountassociated with the user, etc.), an event type that identifies the eventbeing tracked, a value associated with a metric for the event (e.g.,time on page, occurrence or non-occurrence of a booking, occurrence ornon-occurrence of a sale, number of interactions with a feature, etc.),and a timestamp indicative of when the event triggering the method calloccurred. For example, the event tracking method call may be triggeredin response to a user clicking a buy button on a web based application,a booking is initiated in a mobile app, a user selects a credit card inan application, etc. (e.g., active events with respect to a userinteracting with an application), and may also be triggered when a userleaves a specific page of an application or web application, time aframe in an application or web page is displayed, a method call inresponse to completion of a specific event (e.g., page load time),passive events with respect to a user's interactions with anapplication, where the track method call is included in the code for theapplication feature being tracked. In embodiments, the method callwithin the application generates a message including the above describedinformation, and is transmitted to application execution and attributionmanagement server 110. In one embodiment, the message may be encryptedor otherwise secured to obfuscate the information contained herein.However, as discussed herein, the identifiers do not reveal personaluser information, and are instead used by customer system 120 toassociate with the customer's users.

One embodiment of the track events method call, may be a method call,such as track( ) defined in an SDK or API distributed by applicationexecution and attribution management server 110 and integrated intoconfigurable applications 135-1 through 135-N, which may take fourarguments. For example, the track( ) method call may be able to pass toapplication execution and attribution management server 110 acustomer_ID (e.g., an identifier that represents the customer system,such as customer system(s) 120 that distributed configurableapplications to end user systems), a traffic_type (e.g., a string thatrepresents an end user system and enables customer system(s) 120 toidentify specific users, groups of users, etc., such as a user ID,account ID, customer type including fee or paid, etc.), an event_type(e.g., a string that represents an event type corresponding to the eventthat resulted in the track( ) method call), and value (e.g., an optionalvalue that may be defined to represent a value or metric to be tracked,or which can be set to null or zero in the event application executionand attribution management server are to count occurrences of an event).Furthermore, the execution of the track( ) method call may also generateand attach a timestamp to the event message. For example, a track( )method call may take the form of client.track(“Customer_ID”,“Trafic_Type”, “Event_Type”, Value), with example values ofclient.track(“john@doe.com”, “user”, “page_load_time”, 83.3334). Inembodiments, however, other fields/arguments may be used consistent withthe discussion herein for tracking and describing events that occur inresponse to application of different application treatments.

In embodiments, when event tracking method calls are integrated intofeatures of configurable application(s) 135-1 through 135-N, softwarerunning in customer system(s) 120, and/or software running in externalcustomer system(s) 140, application execution and attribution managementserver 110 aggregates a plurality of received event messages, and storesthe event messages in a data store (not illustrated) by customer key,user key, or any other key, along with the data (e.g. timestamps andother data) from the event messages that enable application executionand attribution management server 110 to store, locate, and sort eventinformation records. In embodiments, the event messages may be generatedfrom method calls embedded in feature treatments that have beenactivated in a configurable application. However, event messages mayalso be generated from method calls in other software components orsystems. For example, an event tracking message may be used within afeature's selected treatment to indicate when the user is accessing thetreatment or a function within a treatment. As another example, afeature treatment may be designed to improve sales conversions, and themethod call is associated with a buy button that is not part of theconfigurable aspects of the application. As yet another example, anexternal customer system 140, such as a customer relationship management(CRM) system, may use a track event method call when a new contact isadded to the CRM system. As discussed herein, even though one or more ofthe received event messages are not connected to the execution of theconfigurable application, they may be relevant to customer system 120when determining effectiveness of a treatment. Therefore, the use of thetrack( ) method calls discussed herein enables the tracking andattribution of events from a more diverse set of systems to improve howrelevant events are attributed to feature treatment application at oneor more of end user systems 130.

In embodiments, events may be tracked which are not directly part of aconfigurable feature treatment, and may even be in an unrelated (e.g.remote system) software system (e.g., customer system(s) 120, externalcustomer system(s) 140, or other systems). However, in embodiments, eachof the tracked events regardless of where the even message originates(e.g., accessing a treatment, buy button selection, CRM system contactadded, as well as other tracked events) may be defined as having a valueassociated with a metric for measuring the effectiveness of anapplication. The metrics, and values associated with the metrics, may bedefined by a customer system 120 (e.g., via user interface provided byapplication execution and attribution management server 110), andappropriate track( ) method calls placed within the other softwaresystems reporting the value of the metric during application of featuretreatment(s).

In one embodiment, after aggregating the plurality of events from thevarious systems from the received event tracking messages, applicationexecution and attribution management server 110 performs eventattribution on the collected corpus of reported events from end usersystems(s) 130-1 through 130-N and other software systems that haveintegrated the tracking techniques discussed herein. In embodiments,event attribution links events (e.g., from event messages from anysource system) with feature treatments applied in a configurableapplication. The link is established by the application execution andattribution management server 110 using one or more of the customer keyand/or user key, and time stamps in the event messages based on a timewhen a feature treatment is activated. That is, events (e.g., clicks,views, buys, etc.) that occur after a user (e.g., an end user of one ofend-user systems 130) received a treatment for a configurableapplication may be linked/attributed to the feature treatment.Furthermore, because feature treatments may be organized based on anynumber of end user attributes (e.g., one or more of age, geography,income bracket, user class, gender, profession, etc.), different samplesets or populations may be generated for deploying different featuretreatments in different time periods. The attribution of events tofeature treatments, and further based on sample sets, are then used byapplication execution and attribution management server 110 todetermine, using statistical measures of significance, whether an eventwas influenced by a feature treatment based on the values and eventtypes within the event messages from the different populations/subsetsof end users. For example, activating a variant of feature treatment xresulted in a statistically higher sales conversion for users belongingto group y. As another example, activating a variant of featuretreatment i resulted in a statistically longer page view time for usersbelonging to group j. As yet another example, an event triggered on anexternal system 140 is statistically more likely to happen for users ingroup a exposed to feature treatment b.

For example, FIG. 4 illustrates end user system(s) 430-1 as part ofsample set 460-1, which may receive for example, a first version offeature treatment or a first version of treatments to more than onefeature. End user system(s) 430-N are part of sample set 460-N, whichmay receive a second version of feature treatment or a second version oftreatments to more than one feature. The sample sets may be defined, bya customer system (not shown) and/or the application execution andattribution management server (e.g., system 210), based on anycombination of end user characteristic. The application execution andattribution management server 210 may then distribute the same ordifferent treatments to the end user systems 430 and receive eventmessages, as well as event messages from end user systems and externalcustomer system(s) 440. These event messages, when attributed to theapplication of feature treatment to the different groups, may then beused to determine whether the treatments were influential in reaching agoal of customer system 120 (e.g., by statistically analyzing one ormore metrics collected from relevant event messages). For example, was atreatment statistically significant in a sales event (e.g., clicking abuy button, adding a contact to a CRM system, etc.), page time event(e.g., a time on page measurement, page load time reduction, etc.), etc.Furthermore, application execution and attribution management server 210may adjust and/or re-define the sample sets based on customerinstructions and/or automatically to execute orchestrated experiments,feature rollout, user system randomization for sample sets, etc.

Returning to FIG. 1 , in one embodiment, the statistical significance ofevents attributed to feature treatments, and further based on usersample sets, may be used to generate a user interface to a user ofcustomer system 120. In embodiments, statistical significance representsthe likelihood that the difference in a metric between selectedtreatments and a baseline or control treatment is not due to chance(e.g., the treatment influence a metric value's change). Statisticalsignificant of a treatment on a metric's value (e.g., a metric ofimportance to a customer system) may be determined using standardstatistical analysis techniques, such as frequentist testing techniques,Bayesian testing techniques, resampling techniques, as well as otherstatistical analysis techniques, and a threshold of statisticalsignificance may be defined by a customer system (e.g., 5%, 10%, 2%,0.1%, etc.). This threshold enables a customer to adjust the riskassociated with falsely attributing statistical significant to a resultof an experiment (e.g., treatment application).

In one embodiment, because events include customer defined values andevent types, the values and event types are typically associated withkey performance measurements of the customer (e.g., sales conversions,service bookings, time on page, page load times, etc.). Therefore, thestatistical evaluation of the event values for the relevant event types,which is based on the attribution performed by application execution andattribution management server 110, enables application execution andattribution management server 110 to generate reports that indicate theeffectiveness of an application's treatment variations with respect tothose key performance measurements. In one embodiment, the reports aregenerated in a web based user interface provided to a customer system120 so that a user of customer system 120 can view and analyze theeffectiveness of different feature treatments with respect to their keyperformance measurements. Beneficially, the reports are able to collectevents from any number of configurable applications and remote systemswhich may be relevant to the customer system. Thus, a more completepicture of application effectiveness can be generated based onapplication of feature treatments for all end user systems and subsetsof end user systems. Customer system(s) may use the information todetermine which versions (e.g., which treatment or collection oftreatments) to roll out in an update, which treatments are to be appliedto which user groups, etc. to maximize application effectiveness withrespect to achieving the key performance measurements determined throughevent attribution.

In one embodiment, the statistical significance of attributed events tofeature treatments may also be used by application execution andattribution management server 110 to actively configure additional enduser systems. That is, when application execution and attributionmanagement server 110 detects that a feature treatment is statisticallylikely to achieve a customer system 120 defined goal (e.g.,statistically significant increase in sales, increase in subscriptionsign ups, page views, decreased page load time, etc.), in embodiments,application execution and attribution management server 110 canproactively apply the feature treatment determined to have thestatistically significant impact to the end user system or systems thatare determined to be influenced by the feature treatment. For example,the specific treatment may be applied to all end user systems 130-1through 130-N, or a subset of user systems chosen based on thestatistical significant analysis. Therefore, real time testing andanalysis enables application execution and attribution management server110 to tune the configurable applications in end user systems in a waythat is most beneficial to customer system(s) 120. However, inembodiments, the reports generated for customer may include therecommended tuning.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of one embodiment 200 of an applicationexecution and attribution management server 210, an end user system 270,a customer system 250, and an external customer system 255. The systemsillustrated in FIG. 2 provide additional details for the systemsdiscussed above in FIG. 1 . Furthermore, although there is only onecustomer system 250, one external customer system 255, and one end usersystem 270, any number of such systems may be used for even attributionand analysis as discussed herein.

In one embodiment, application execution management and attributionserver 210 includes a statistical analysis engine 212 for performingstatistical analysis on events that have been attributed to featuretreatments for users/user groups, graphical user interface (GUI)generator 214 for displaying configuration interfaces to customer system250 as well as statistical analysis results, user data store 216 forstoring events with associated event data and treatments/impressionsdata, experiment and event attribution engine 220 to define one or moreuser groups for receiving treatment variations and for attributing eventmessages from both end user systems and external systems to thosetreatment variations, application treatment interface 230 fordistributing treatment configurations to end user system 270 asspecified by customer system 250 or based on an orchestrated experiment,event tracking API manager and interface 240 to distribute eventtracking method call APIs and receive event messages for storage of theevent messages and event message data in user data store 216, and actionengine 242 to, which in embodiments, proactively applies one or morefeature treatments based on determined statistical significance of afeature treatment to user groups.

End user system 270 includes a configurable application 275 capable ofreceiving feature treatment configuration data and selectively applyingfeature treatments, an optional software development kit (SDK) 280 forreceiving the feature treatments, and API event tracking functions 280such as event tracking method calls (discussed above) defined by an APIof application execution and attribution management server 210. Inembodiments, the method calls in API event tracking functions 282 may ormay not be part of a configurable feature within application, as definedby a developer associated with customer system 250 includes the methodcalls within the application.

External customer system 255, such as a data warehouse, CRM system,policy system, etc. may also include API event tracking functions 280that a developer has associated with customer system 250 and hasincluded the method calls for generating event messages within theapplication being executed at external customer system 255.

Customer system 250, in embodiments, distributes the configurableapplication 275 to end user system 270 directly, or through a thirdparty (not shown) such as an application store. Furthermore, afterconfigurable applications are distributed to end user systems, a user ofcustomer system 250 may define, using application identifiers, customerkeys, user keys, etc. which treatments are to be applied to whichfeatures in configurable application 275. Furthermore, a user ofcustomer system 250 may specify an experiment (e.g., define user groupsand associated treatments, a timeframe for an experiment including starttime and duration, etc.), set up an orchestrated experiment (e.g., timedrollout of a feature to members of a user group or user class), anddefine automatic actions that action engine 242 may take based onstatistical analysis results.

In one embodiment, event tracking API manager and interface 240 ofapplication execution and attribution management server 210 receivesevent messages on an ongoing basis, and stores the relevant data (e.g.,customer key, user key, event type, value, timestamp, etc.) in user datastore 216. Then, based on experiment parameters defined by customersystem 250, application treatment interface 230 may distribute featuretreatments to associated user(s)/group(s) (e.g., users in a specificregion have a specific treatment applied, users of a certain age have aspecific treatment applied, etc.), and collects event messages.Experiment and event attribution engine 220 then accesses the user datastore to obtain event message data associated with the customer key anduser key (e.g., event messages associated with customer system 250, andthe end users of that customer including end user system 270).

As discussed below, experiment and event attribution engine 220 mayperform event attribution for some events, exclude some users from anexperiment, update a version of an experiment, and set a window of timefor the experiment (e.g., automatically or based on customer systeminput). As discussed herein, application execution and attributionmanagement server 210 is able to consume event data from any source(e.g., one or more end user systems, external customer systems, etc.) solong as the event captured in an event message can be associated with acustomer key, traffic/user key, and timestamp. Thus, applicationexecution and attribution management server 210 allows customer systemsand configurable applications to send application execution andattribution management server 210 data from any source, forautomatically identifying the sample population of an experiment, andusing experiment and event attribution engine 220 to intelligentlyattribute events to each sample based on targeting rule (e.g., how auser is identified for a treatment) and treatment (e.g., application ofthe treat to the identified user).

In embodiments, experiment and event attribution engine 220 combinesreceived event data with the user keys to determine whether the eventmay have been influenced by a treatment applied to configurableapplication 275, based on whether the event occurred after the end usersystem was exposed to the treatment. Furthermore, the event messages, asdiscussed herein, may include a value associated with an event type thatis relevant to a metric for the event type (e.g., an impact of aparticular treatment) compared to a baseline treatment (e.g., valuesfrom event messages from another subset of users, for example, thosewithout the treatment applied or a different treatment applied).

In the embodiments discussed herein, the processes of mapping generatedevent messages to the experiments and treatments users were exposed tois referred to as attribution, and is a cornerstone to determiningsignificance of the statistical significance of treatments. Attribution,in embodiments, can be divided up into three scenarios

In most scenarios, when a user is shown a treatment, their treatmentwill not change for the duration of the experiment or until the versionof the experiment changes. In embodiments, the user (e.g., of end usersystem 270) is the target of the treatment experimentation, and thus arule may be received from customer system 250 that defines how the useris identified during an experiment (e.g., a rule defining a usercharacteristic, a user group, etc. and what treatment variation is to beapplied).

In embodiments, experiment and event attribution engine 220 identifieswhen the user first saw the treatment, and attributes all events withina time period (e.g., a threshold, such as 1 minute, 15 minutes, 1 hour,etc.) prior to this first impression. In embodiments, this time periodacts as a buffer to account for, for example, different system clocks onsystems that are part of an experiment, treatment applications todifferent systems are captured in sync, etc. If an event timestamp isolder than the time period before the impressions timestamp, experimentand event attribution engine 220 would not attribute the event to theexperiment and treatment on the metric's impact. This same logic isapplied by experiment and event attribution engine 220 to the end of anexperiment. There is another time period buffer for events to bereceived once the version changes before the final calculation is doneand the metric's impact are frozen for that version of the experiment.

FIG. 3A is a diagram that illustrates an embodiment 300 of attributionby experiment and event attribution engine 220 following a single user'sactivity. This example illustrates how experiment and event attributionengine 220 attributes events generated during an experiment when auser's rule (e.g., a user characteristic, classification, etc.) andtreatment do not change throughout the experiment window 308 (e.g., theduration of the experiment from a specified start time including thetime buffers).

As illustrated, external events 306 are denoted by ‘e’, and externalevents outside of experiment's window are illustrated with diagonallines. For example, “e” is an event, such as a click event that istracked via method call. “r1” and “on” are impression events 302 and area representation of an end user's impressions (e.g., accessing atreatment) containing the rule (r1) and the treatment (on). At thesepoints (e.g., each external event and each impression event), experimentand event attribution engine 220 is deciding whether the user and theiractions are bucketed into a certain treatment based on the targetingrule that customer system 250 has defined (e.g., whether the user'saction can be attributed to the application of the feature treatmentduring an experiment). In the illustrated example, all impression eventsin the timeline are for the same treatment and targeting rule.

The example in the timeline diagram illustrated in FIG. 3A shows theuser's activity in configurable application 275 associated with customersystem 250. When experiment and event attribution engine 220 calculatesmetrics, experiment and event attribution engine 220 includes theimpression events 302 and external events 306 in the shaded region,e.g., the events from time buffer duration T_(i) minutes before theuser's first impression to time buffer duration T_(i) minutes after theend of the version v1 304-1. Those events outside of the shaded areawould not be included in the experiment window and/or used fordetermining statistical significant of user actions on a metric's valuemeasured during the experiment. Any number of users' activities may becaptured when a rule and treatment does not change during an experiment,as discussed above. Furthermore, additional experiment versions, such asversion v2 304-2 may then be run and event messages attributed to thatexperiment, as discussed herein.

FIG. 3B is a diagram that illustrates another embodiment 320 ofattribution by experiment and event attribution engine 220 following asingle user's activity. The embodiment 320 illustrated in FIG. 3Billustrates attribution when a rule change occurs during an experiment,but there is no treatment change.

In some scenarios, when a user is shown a treatment the reason, or rule,that was used to determine the treatment may have changed. As anexample, it is possible the attribute being used in the evaluationchanged and the user still received the same treatment, despite theirattribute changing.

In this case, experiment and event attribution engine 220 will isolatethe events and apply a time period (e.g., 15-minute) buffer to the firstand last impression received for the unique rule and treatmentcombination. For example, the treatment may remain “on” even though auser's subscription status changes (e.g., rule may be defined based onsubscription status). FIG. 3B illustrates how experiment and eventattribution engine 220 attributes events when a user's rule changes andtheir treatment does not change throughout the version. Again, “e” is anevent, such as a click event. These events are represented within thetimeline of the version of the experiment. “r1”, “r2” and “on”illustrated in FIG. 3B are a representation of the user's impressionevents 302 and external events 306 containing the rule (r1 or r2) andthe treatment (on). At these points, experiment and event attributionengine 220 is deciding whether the user's activities are bucketed into acertain treatment based on the targeting rule defined by customer system250. In the above example, there are two unique combinations where therule changes from r1 to r2 while the treatment remains the same. Theexample in the timeline diagram illustrated in FIG. 3B shows the user'sactivity in configurable application 275. When calculating metrics,experiment and event attribution engine 220 will include the shadedregion when looking at targeting rule r1. Namely, experiment and eventattribution engine 220 uses the events from a duration before (e.g.,T_(i) before) the user's first impression to a duration after (e.g.,T_(i) after) the first impression for the second rule for experimentwindow 322. When isolating to r2, the same rules apply. Experiment andevent attribution engine 220 includes the events a duration before(e.g., T_(i) before) the user's first impression for r2 to a durationafter (e.g., T_(i) after) the rule (in this example, version) change forexperiment window 324. Those events not in the shaded region would againnot be included in any rule analysis given they fall outside the bufferwindows.

FIG. 3C illustrates another embodiment 340 of attribution by experimentand event attribution engine 220 following a single user's activity. Theembodiment 340 illustrated in FIG. 3C illustrates attribution when thereis a rule and treatment change during an experiment.

In some scenarios, the reason, or rule, that was used to determine thetreatment may have changed, as well as the treatment itself, during anexperiment. As an example, it is possible the attribute being used inthe evaluation changed, and the user receives a new treatment as aresult of their attribute changing. An example to illustrate thisscenario is when the attribute customer system 250 seeks to targetcauses the targeted end user's treatment to change. For example,customer system 250 may target free end users (using the user attribute“free”), which is converted to paid and may show the users a prompt totake a certain action (treatment “on”). Once the end user systemconverts, the customer attribute now becomes “paid”, and they no longermeet the targeting condition used to show them the prompt and are shownthe “off” treatment in a different rule.

In this case, experiment and event attribution engine 220 will isolatethe events and apply a buffer (e.g., T_(i)) to the version start and theunique rule treatment combination change. FIG. 3B illustrates howexperiment and event attribution engine 220 attributes events when auser's rule changes and their treatment changes throughout the version.Again, “e” is an event, such as a click event. “r1”, “r2” and “on”,“off” are a representation of the user's impressions containing the rule(r1 or r2) and the treatment (on or off). At these points, experimentand event attribution engine 220 is deciding whether the user isbucketed into a certain treatment based on the targeting rule defined bycustomer system 250. In this example, there are two unique combinationswhere the rule is changing from r1 to r2 and the treatment changing fromon to off.

The example in the timeline diagram of FIG. 3C shows the end user'sactivity in configurable application 275. When calculating metrics,experiment and event attribution engine 220 will include the shadedregion when looking at targeting rule r1 for the events from a durationbefore (e.g., T_(i) before) the user's first impression to a durationafter (e.g., T_(i) after) the first impression for the second rule forexperiment window 322. When isolating to r2, the same applies andexperiment and event attribution engine 220 includes the events theduration before and after the rule (in this example, version) change forexperiment window 326. Those events outside the shaded region would notbe included in any rule analysis given they fall outside the bufferwindows.

Returning to FIG. 2 , in embodiments, a user may be excluded byexperiment and event attribution engine 220 from the aggregated resultsfor an experiment (e.g., application of treatments to specific users,and analysis of the statistical significance of the treatmentapplication to different subsets or sample populations during anexperiment). In embodiments, exclusion of a user from an experimentexcludes that user and their tracked events from the experiment,attribution, and statistical significance analysis discussed herein.Therefore, it is important when understanding attribution to alsounderstand what causes a user and their tracked events to be excludedfrom the analysis of an experiment. In embodiments, there are twoprimary scenarios when experiment and event attribution engine 220 willautomatically remove the user from the analysis. First, a user may beexcluded due to treatment change within a rule. If a user is exposed tomultiple treatments within a targeting rule, experiment and eventattribution engine 220 will disqualify the user from the experiment andexclude their data when looking at metrics. In this case, for example,the user's data would be applied to both sides of the experiment, inboth treatments, and will cloud metrics analysis results. For example,in a medical experiment, if a patient participating in a new drug trialwas to switch to sugar pills halfway through the experiment, it would beinappropriate to ascribe their outcomes to either the group taking thedrug or the group assigned the placebo. Thus, experiment and eventattribution engine 220 will excluded users where a treatment changeswithin a rule, which could happen for multiple reasons. For example, ifa user is moved from a treatment segment that is “whitelisted on” to asegment that is “whitelist off”, their targeting rule “whitelistedsegment” will not change, but their treatment may. As another example,if customer system 250 is using matching and bucketing keys, thebucketing key could change causing the same user (represented by thematching key) to receive a different treatment.

Furthermore, experiment and event attribution engine 220 may exclude auser from metric analysis for an experiment due to moving rules morethan once. In one embodiment, experiment and event attribution engine220 allows users to move between rules and treatments once within thesame version of an experiment. However, if a user is frequently movingbetween versions and treatments, there may be an issue with theexperiment and how targeting rules are applied to users. To be safe, andnot to provide potentially bad data, experiment and event attributionengine 220 may cautiously remove the user and their data from theanalysis performed by statistical analysis engine 212.

In embodiments, experiment and event attribution engine 220 and theanalysis performed by statistical analysis engine 212 may supportexperiment version changes. When performing an experiment defined bycustomer system 250 (e.g., start time, rule application, targetingcustomer groups, etc.), it may be the case that users are progressivelyadded into the treatment throughout the course of the experiment ascustomer system 250 edits targeting rules. In embodiments, changes totargeting rules will trigger a new version in experiment and eventattribution engine 220. By tracking version changes, experiment andevent attribution engine 220 is able to count only the events relevantto a particular treatment, and statistical analysis engine 212 may thentreat each targeting rule as a distinct sample population to compare. Asthe version is changed, experiment and event attribution engine 220 runsa final calculate job a certain time period (e.g., 15-minutes) after theversion change and freezes the metrics impact so customer system 250 canalways revisit the results later.

Furthermore, experiment and event attribution engine 220 can manageexperiment windows (e.g., timeframe). In embodiments, experiment andevent attribution engine 220 allows customer system 250 to run anexperiment across a customer specified window up to a maximum duration,for example up to a 90-day experiment time window. If an experiment'sversion is longer than the maximum duration, say 95 days, experiment andevent attribution engine 220 may calculate data for the last number ofdays or duration of the experiment associated with the maximum duration.

In embodiments, based on the attribution and exclusion discussed above,experiment and event attribution engine 220 stores the attribution ofevents to treatments in user data store 216 for experiments. Statisticalanalysis engine 212 may access the data store, for example upon requestof customer system 250, to perform one or more forms of statisticalanalysis, such as frequentist testing techniques, Bayesian testingtechniques, resampling techniques, as well as other statistical analysistechniques. As discussed herein, the statistical analysis determineswhether a treatment variation applied to a specific user and/or usergroup influence outcome with respect to values related to keyperformance measurements in event messages.

Furthermore, and as discussed herein, action engine 242 may also utilizethe statistical analysis and one or more automatic action rules toautomatically adjust configurations of configurable applications at enduser's systems (e.g., end user system 270). The adjustments, when made,may be done to improve one or more of the functional performance of theapplication (e.g., increase application execution speed, reduce memoryusage, etc.), a key performance measurement associated with theapplication (e.g., sales conversions, new sign ups, bookings, etc.), aswell as other aspects of the application. In embodiments, a rule withwhich action engine 242 automatically configures an application with atreatment based on statistical significant determination is defined bycustomer system 250, such as via a graphical user interface to actionengine 242 generated by GUI generator 214. In embodiments, the rule maybe defined based on customer type, rule, statistical significance,confidence of statistical significance, or a combination of factors. Inany event, upon the conclusion of one or more experiments, action engine242 may request statistical analysis engine 212 to perform an analysisof a treatments' impact on a metric value, and when such value isdetermined to be statistically significant for a population defined in arule, action engine may proactively configure treatments applied to oneor more remote end user systems. As a result, the execution andperformance by the remote end user systems is improved with respect tothe goals of the customer system 250.

FIG. 5A is a flow diagram of one embodiment of a method 500 for toproviding attribution of events to application features. The method 500is performed by processing logic that may comprise hardware (circuitry,dedicated logic, etc.), software (such as is run on a general purposecomputer system or a dedicated machine), firmware, or a combination. Inone embodiment, the method 500 is performed by an application executionmanagement and attribution server (e.g., application executionmanagement and attribution server 110 or 210).

Referring to FIG. 5A, processing logic begins by receiving a pluralityof event tracking messages associated with an end user system, eachevent tracking message including at least a customer key, a traffic key(e.g., end user identifier(s), an event type, a timestamp, and anoptional metric value (processing block 502). In embodiments, themessages may be from a configurable application running on the end usersystem, one or more remote systems, or a combination thereof. Processinglogic then applies a feature treatment to a configurable applicationexecuting on the end user system, the feature treatment specified by acustomer system to be applied based on traffic key. In embodiments, thetraffic key is the user key discussed above (processing block 504).

Processing logic then attributes a first set of events reported in theevent tracking messages with the application of the feature treatmentbased on traffic keys associated with a first set of end users systems,including an end user system associated with the user, and a set oftimestamps (processing block 506). As discussed above, those events thatare reported as occurring after a treatment is applied, and within anexperiment window, are attributed to the feature treatment. Processinglogic further attributes a second set of events reported in the eventtracking messages with non-application of the feature treatment based ontraffic keys associated with a second set of end user systems and asecond set of timestamps (processing block 508). That is, eventsoccurring on systems that do not have treatment application applied orhave an alternative treatment applied may serve as a baseline forcomparison against the attributed events. For example, a subset of enduser systems, including an end user system associated with the user, mayhave the treatment applied during an experiment to determine efficacy ofthe treatment with respect to a customer's goal (e.g., reducing pageload time, increasing occurrence of buy button selection, etc.). In thisexample, the other end user systems form a different subset that do nothave the treatment applied (e.g., they are applying a prior version ofthe treatment, applying a different treatment altogether, etc.), whichmay be used for comparison. The efficacy (e.g., metric value beingtracked) may then be analyzed, as discussed herein, to determine if astatistical significance can be detected with respect to a goal definedby a customer system.

Processing logic may further exclude one or more events attributed tothe application (processing lock 510). As discussed above, a user may beexcluded from an experiment and/or events excluded from an experimentfor several reasons that would taint the data pool of event attribution,such as multiple rule changes and/or a treatment change during anexperiment.

Processing logic determines whether a metric associated with thetreatment application in the configurable application is statisticallysignificant based on the first and second sets of event messages(processing block 512). In embodiments, processing logic may apply knownstatistical analysis measures. Furthermore, the metric may be defined bya customer, and may therefore be relevant to a key performancemeasurement associated with the configurable application (e.g.,application performance, sales conversions, service bookings, new CRMcontacts, etc.). Thus, processing logic can determine whetherapplication of feature treatment influenced an end user with respect tothe key performance measurement, and is therefore an effective change tothe application. Additionally, the event messages are received from aplurality of remote systems that are not necessarily connected to theexecution of the configurable application or the treatment itself, butnevertheless provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of theapplication by enabling processing logic to attribute various useractions at different systems with the feature treatment application.

Based on the analysis, processing logic generates a user interfacepresenting the determination of the statistical significance of themetric with respect to application of the feature treatment (processingblock 514). The user interface may be a web based user interfacetransmitted to a customer system, and may enable the customer system tointeract with the statistical analysis results of one or moreexperiments.

Furthermore, in embodiments, processing logic then applies the featuretreatment to a second configurable application provided to a second enduser system in response to determining statistical significance of thetreatment with respect to the metric (processing block 516). Asdiscussed herein, processing logic may take one or more automaticactions, based on the statistical significance indicators, to adjustconfigurations of the configurable applications of other users as thoseapplications are running.

FIG. 5B is a flow diagram of one embodiment of a method 550 for anapplication reporting impression events. The method 550 is performed byprocessing logic that may comprise hardware (circuitry, dedicated logic,etc.), software (such as is run on a general purpose computer system ora dedicated machine), firmware, or a combination. In one embodiment, themethod 550 may be performed by a configurable application running on auser system, such as configurable application 135-1 through 135-N and275. In another embodiment, the method may be performed by an externalcustomer system, such as external customer system 255. In yet anotherembodiment, both external customer systems and configurable applicationsmay report impression events consistent with the discussion herein.

Referring to FIG. 5B, processing logic begins by executing anapplication with tracking logic provided by an application execution andattribution management server (processing block 552). For example,application execution and attribution management server 110 or 210 mayprovide an API, SDK, etc. to a customer system (e.g., customer system120 or 250), which integrates tracking method calls within relevantportions of one or more software applications to be tracked. Forexample, the tracking calls may be integrated into application featurestreatments, where specific treatments are conditionally executed withinthe configurable application. As another example, tracking calls may beintegrated into other software systems, such as membership systems, CRMsystems, etc. that are relevant to a feature treatment that is thesubject of an experiment. In yet another example, tracking calls may beintegrated into several systems, that are part of configurableapplications and external systems, where the track calls are integratedinto features of relevant that are related to configurable applicationfeature application and customer system 250 objectives

In one embodiment, processing logic generates and transmits one or moreevent messages to an application execution and attribution managementserver (processing block 658). In one embodiment, event messages aregenerated by execute a tracking method call (e.g. track(customer_ID,traffic_ID, event-ID, metric value, and a timestamp). The date containedwithin the track( ) call and transmitted by processing logic toapplication execution and attribution management server indicates that afeature of interested within an application or external system wasaccessed by a user of an end user system. Then, when the data, such ascustomer ID, traffic/user ID, metric value, event type, timestamps, etc.are attributed to experiments based on timing, as discussed above, richand feature full insights are gained as to whether a treatment appliedto a configurable application used by one or more users (e.g., thosespecified in an experiment rule) is statistically significant. Then, theapplication execution and attribution management server may takeappropriate actions, such as automatically configuring an applicationbased on detection of statistically significant end user behaviors fromthe experiments.

FIG. 6 is one embodiment of a computer system that may be used with thepresent invention, for example, to implement application execution andattribution management server 110. It will be apparent to those ofordinary skill in the art, however that other alternative systems ofvarious system architectures may also be used.

The data processing system illustrated in FIG. 6 includes a bus or otherinternal communication means 615 for communicating information, and atleast one processor 610 coupled to the bus 615 for processinginformation. The system further comprises a random access memory (RAM)or other volatile storage device 650 (referred to as memory), coupled tobus 615 for storing information and instructions to be executed byprocessor 610. Main memory 650 also may be used for storing temporaryvariables or other intermediate information during execution ofinstructions by processor 610. The system also comprises a read onlymemory (ROM) and/or static storage device 620 coupled to bus 615 forstoring static information and instructions for processor 610, and adata storage device 625 such as a magnetic disk or optical disk and itscorresponding disk drive. Data storage device 625 is coupled to bus 615for storing information and instructions.

The system may further be coupled to a display device 670, such as alight emitting diode (LED), a liquid crystal display (LCD), or otherdisplay, coupled to bus 615 through bus 665 for displaying informationto a computer user. An alphanumeric input device 675, includingalphanumeric and other keys, may also be coupled to bus 615 through bus665 for communicating information and command selections to processor610. An additional user input device is cursor control device 680, suchas a touchpad, mouse, a trackball, stylus, or cursor direction keyscoupled to bus 615 through bus 665 for communicating directioninformation and command selections to processor 610, and for controllingcursor movement on display device 670.

Another device, which may optionally be coupled to computer system 600,is a communication device 690 for accessing other nodes of a distributedsystem via a network. The communication device 690 may include any of anumber of commercially available networking peripheral devices such asthose used for coupling to an Ethernet, token ring, Internet, or widearea network. The communication device 690 may further be a null-modemconnection, or any other mechanism that provides connectivity betweenthe computer system 600 and the outside world. Note that any or all ofthe components of this system illustrated in FIG. 6 and associatedhardware may be used in various embodiments of the present invention.

It will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that anyconfiguration of the system may be used for various purposes accordingto the particular implementation. The control logic or softwareimplementing the present invention can be stored in main memory 650,mass storage device 625, or other storage medium locally or remotelyaccessible to processor 610.

It will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art that thesystem, method, and process described herein can be implemented assoftware stored in main memory 650 or read only memory 620 and executedby processor 610. This control logic or software may also be resident onan article of manufacture comprising a non-transitory computer readablemedium having computer readable program code embodied therein and beingreadable by the mass storage device 625 and for causing the processor610 to operate in accordance with the methods and teachings herein.

The present invention may also be embodied in a handheld or portabledevice containing a subset of the computer hardware components describedabove. For example, the handheld device may be configured to containonly the bus 615, the processor 610, and memory 650 and/or 625. Thehandheld device may also be configured to include a set of buttons orinput signaling components with which a user may select from a set ofavailable options. The handheld device may also be configured to includean output apparatus such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) or displayelement matrix for displaying information to a user of the handhelddevice. Conventional methods may be used to implement such a handhelddevice. The implementation of the present invention for such a devicewould be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art given thedisclosure of the present invention as provided herein.

The present invention may also be embodied in a special purposeappliance including a subset of the computer hardware componentsdescribed above. For example, the appliance may include a processor 610,a data storage device 625, a bus 615, and memory 650, and onlyrudimentary communications mechanisms, such as a small touch-screen thatpermits the user to communicate in a basic manner with the device. Ingeneral, the more special-purpose the device is, the fewer of theelements need be present for the device to function.

It is to be understood that the above description is intended to beillustrative, and not restrictive. Many other embodiments will beapparent to those of skill in the art upon reading and understanding theabove description. The scope of the invention should, therefore, bedetermined with reference to the appended claims, along with the fullscope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.

The foregoing description, for purpose of explanation, has beendescribed with reference to specific embodiments. However, theillustrative discussions above are not intended to be exhaustive or tolimit the invention to the precise forms disclosed. Many modificationsand variations are possible in view of the above teachings. Theembodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain theprinciples of the invention and its practical applications, to therebyenable others skilled in the art to best utilize the invention andvarious embodiments with various modifications as may be suited to theparticular use contemplated.

We claim:
 1. A method for event attribution during softwareexperimentation, comprising: receiving, by a server computer systemduring a software experiment, one or more event tracking messagesassociated with an end user system, each event tracking message of theone or more event tracking messages including a customer identifier, anend user identifier, and a timestamp; applying, by the server computersystem, a feature treatment to a configurable application executing onthe end user system, the feature treatment specified by a customersystem associated with the customer identifier, wherein the featuretreatment configures one or more features of the configurableapplication associated with the end user identifier; and attributing afirst set of events, from the one or more event tracking messages, tothe feature treatment applied to the configurable application executingon the end user system, based on the customer identifier, the end useridentifier, and a set of timestamps associated with the first set ofevents, the one or more event tracking messages generated by a softwareapplication executing on a system other than the end user system, theattributing of the first set of events to the feature treatment based atleast in part on the set of timestamps indicating that events from thefirst set of events occurred at times after: a start time of thesoftware experiment; and a first buffer period of time before anexposure of the end user system to the application of the featuretreatment to the configurable application.
 2. The method of claim 1,further comprising: receiving, by the server computer system from acustomer computer system, a definition of an experiment, where thedefinition of the experiment defines application of the featuretreatment from a start time for a specified duration of time, andfurther defines a plurality of end users including an end useridentified by the end user identifier; applying, by the server computersystem, the feature treatment to a plurality of configurableapplications executing on a plurality of end user systems associatedwith the plurality of end users during a duration of the experiment; andattributing events received from event messages generated by theplurality of configurable applications during the duration of theexperiment to the application of the feature treatment.
 3. The method ofclaim 2, further comprising: receiving, by the server computer systemfrom an end user system, one or more end user attributes associated withthe end user identified by the end user identifier; and whereinreceiving the definition of the experiment comprises in response toreceiving a rule specifying an end user attribute that is to be targetedby application of the feature treatment for the experiment, the servercomputer system selecting the plurality of end users based on the enduser attribute specified in the rule.
 4. The method of claim 3, furthercomprising: excluding the one or more event tracking messages associatedwith the end user system from attribution by the server computer systemin response to a determination that the configurable applicationexecuting on the end user system applied two or more treatments duringthe experiment without a change in the rule.
 5. The method of claim 3,further comprising: excluding the one or more event tracking messagesassociated with the end user system from attribution by the servercomputer system in response to a determination that two or more rulechanges impact treatments applied to the configurable applicationexecuting on the end user system during the experiment.
 6. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising: determining, by the server computer system,whether there is a statistical significance of the first set of eventsbeing caused by the application of the feature treatment to theconfigurable application, wherein the determining of the statisticalsignificance is based on the attribution of the first set of events tothe application of the feature treatment and an attribution of a secondset of events generated by a second set of end user systems to anon-application of the feature treatment to the configurable applicationon the second set of end user systems.
 7. The method of claim 6, whereineach event tracking message of the received one or more event trackingmessages associated with the end user system further comprises an eventtype identifier and a value of a metric being measured for the eventtype identifier, and wherein the determining the statisticalsignificance is further based on a first set of values of the metricfrom event tracking messages received after application of the featuretreatment and a second set of values of the metric associated withnon-application of the feature treatment received from the second set ofend user systems.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein each event trackingmessage of the one or more event tracking messages is generated by atracking method call embedded in feature treatments that have beenactivated in the configurable application executing on the end usersystem, wherein the tracking method call comprises the customeridentifier, the end user identifier, the event type identifier, a valueof the metric, and the timestamp as arguments in the tracking methodcall.
 9. The method of claim 6, further comprising: in response todetermining, by the server computer system, a statistical significanceof the first set of events caused by the application of the featuretreatment to the configurable application, the server computer systemautomatically applying the feature treatment to the configurableapplication executing on a second end user system.
 10. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the first set of events attributed to the featuretreatment further comprises events occurring within a second bufferperiod of time between the end time of the feature treatment and the endtime of the software experiment.
 11. A non-transitory computer readablestorage medium including instructions that, when executed by aprocessor, cause the processor to perform operations for eventattribution during software experimentation, the operations comprising:receiving, by a server computer system during a software experiment, oneor more event tracking messages associated with an end user system, eachevent tracking message of the one or more event tracking messagesincluding at least a customer identifier, an end user identifier, and atimestamp; applying, by the server computer system, a feature treatmentto a configurable application executing on the end user system, thefeature treatment specified by a customer system associated with thecustomer identifier, wherein the feature treatment configures one ormore features of the configurable application associated with the enduser identifier; and attributing a first set of events from the one ormore event tracking messages to the feature treatment applied to theconfigurable application executing on the end user system based on thecustomer identifier, the end user identifier, and a set of timestampsassociated with the first set of events, the one or more event trackingmessages generated by a software application executing on a system otherthan the end user system, the set of timestamps indicating that theevents from the first set of events occurred at times after: a starttime of the software experiment; and a first buffer period of timebefore an exposure of the end user system to the application of thefeature treatment to the configurable application.
 12. Thenon-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 11, furthercomprising: receiving, by the server computer system from a customercomputer system, a definition of an experiment, where the definition ofthe experiment defines application of the feature treatment from a starttime for a specified duration of time, and further defines a pluralityof end users including an end user identified by the end useridentifier; applying, by the server computer system, the featuretreatment to a plurality of configurable applications executing on aplurality of end user systems associated with the plurality of end usersduring a duration of the experiment; and attributing events receivedfrom event messages generated by the plurality of configurableapplications during the duration of the experiment with the applicationof the feature treatment.
 13. The non-transitory computer readablestorage medium of claim 12, further comprising: receiving, by the servercomputer system from an end user system, one or more end user attributesassociated with the end user identified by the end user identifier; andwherein receiving the definition of the experiment comprises in responseto receiving a rule specifying an end user attribute that is to betargeted by application of the feature treatment for the experiment, theserver computer system selecting the plurality of end users based on theend user attribute specified in the rule.
 14. The non-transitorycomputer readable storage medium of claim 13, further comprising:excluding the event tracking messages associated with the end usersystem from attribution by the server computer system in response to adetermination that the configurable application executing on the enduser system applied two or more treatments during the experiment withouta change in the rule.
 15. The non-transitory computer readable storagemedium of claim 13, further comprising: excluding the event trackingmessages associated with the end user system from attribution by theserver computer system in response to a determination that two or morerule changes impact treatments applied to the configurable applicationexecuting on the end user system during the experiment.
 16. A system forevent attribution during software experimentation, comprising: a memoryto store event tracking messages; and a processing system coupled withthe memory configured to: receive, during a software experiment, one ormore event tracking messages associated with an end user system, eachevent tracking message of the one or more event tracking messagesincluding a customer identifier, an end user identifier, and atimestamp, apply a feature treatment to a configurable applicationexecuting on the end user system, the feature treatment specified by acustomer system associated with the customer identifier, wherein thefeature treatment configures one or more features of the configurableapplication associated with the end user identifier, and attribute afirst set of events from the one or more event tracking messages to thefeature treatment applied to the configurable application executing onthe end user system based on the customer identifier, the end useridentifier, and a set of timestamps associated with the first set ofevents the one or more event tracking messages generated by a softwareapplication executing on a second system other than the end user system,the set of timestamps indicating that the events from the first set ofevents occurred at times after: a start time of the software experiment;and a first buffer period of time before an exposure of the end usersystem to the application of the feature treatment to the configurableapplication.
 17. The system of claim 16, wherein the processing systemis further configured to: receive, from a customer computer system, adefinition of an experiment, where the definition of the experimentdefines application of the feature treatment from a start time for aspecified duration of time, and further defines a plurality of end usersincluding an end user identified by the end user identifier; apply thefeature treatment to a plurality of configurable applications executingon a plurality of end user systems associated with the plurality of endusers during a duration of the experiment; and attribute events receivedfrom event messages generated by the plurality of configurableapplications during the duration of the experiment with the applicationof the feature treatment.
 18. The system of claim 17, wherein theprocessing system is further configured to: receive, from an end usersystem, one or more end user attributes associated with the end useridentified by the end user identifier; and wherein receiving thedefinition of the experiment comprises in response to receiving a rulespecifying an end user attribute that is to be targeted by applicationof the feature treatment for the experiment, selecting the plurality ofend users based on the end user attribute specified in the rule.
 19. Thesystem of claim 16, wherein the processing system is further configuredto: determine whether there is a statistical significance of the firstset of events being caused by the application of the feature treatmentto the configurable application, wherein to determine the statisticalsignificance is based on the attribution of the first set of events tothe application of the feature treatment and an attribution of a secondset of events generated by a second set of end user systems to anon-application of the feature treatment to the configurable applicationat the second set of end user systems.
 20. The system of claim 19,wherein the processing system is further configured to: in response to adetermination of a statistical significance of the first set of eventscaused by the application of the feature treatment to the configurableapplication, the processing system is further configured toautomatically apply the feature treatment determined to have thestatistical significance to a second end user system.